About six moths ago I was laid off from my job.

Losing one’s job is both scary and liberating.

On one hand is the fear.

The safety net is gone—that steady income we’ve grown so accustomed to. It allows us to live with comfort. We pay our mortgage, we pay for our cars, we may pay tuition, we go out for brunch on Sundays—we have a sense of security, financially.

On the other hand is the freedom.

No more desk, office, whatever tying us down! No more eight waking hours of my day sucked into oblivion (not to mention the extra couple hours of drive time back and forth).

So much rare, precious time is suddenly available!

The possibilities are endless.

The thing is, we are often thrown into this situation of freedom with no (or very little) forewarning. We are given this gift of liberation, yet we are in a state of near panic when we receive it.

I mean I guess it’s no biggie for the super-zen-Buddhist-type person whose natural inclination is: “That’s cool, I was practicing non-attachment towards my job anyway…”

But for most of us, this is a stressful situation! Ultimately, we’ve still gotta pay the bills.

Somewhere in our brains, a small part of us is nagging away—what are we going to do about money now?

This puts a bit of a damper on the freedom parade.

Losing one’s job isn’t an easy thing to cope with. We get anxious. We may get depressed. It can be difficult not to fall into a pit of feeling worthless, or even just confused about who we are.

Maybe we didn’t love our former job, but we still committed 8-10 waking hours of every day towards it! When that’s gone, it’s going to feel a little strange.

What do we do now?

That panicked voice in our head screams at us: Find a new job! Start searching immediately!

So we start surfing Craigslist. We create a freakin’ LinkedIn profile.

We do the things we are “supposed” to do—and struggle to find some sense of normalcy in this strange, new territory of existence.

And this new freedom may still come with some limitations. For instance, I may not have to drive to the office and sit at a desk all day anymore, but I’m responsible for taking and picking up my son from school.

So I can’t just decide to drive to the beach and lie in the sun all day long, because I do need to pick up my kid, and there’s not extra cash for daycare right at the moment.

Besides, I shouldn’t be going to the beach and enjoying the sunshine anyway—I should be updating my resume on Monster.

I should….

I should…

I should…

F*ck.

I can’t even enjoy my goddamn free time, because it’s riddled with the shame of being unemployed.

Whoa, this just got heavy.

Seriously though, it’s hard to fight the shame and the “shoulds.”

I’m not working right now, so I should be scouring the job sites for work.

I’m not working right now, so I should be cleaning the house.

I’m not working right now, so I should be cooking up some sort of hot evening meal for the family. (Like I magically became domestic or a better cook when I lost my day job.)

But guess what: going from a working woman to a woman at home doesn’t automatically transform me into Sally-Homemaker, and I’m not saying it should.

What I am saying is when our day-to-day routines get disrupted, and we find ourselves starting a strange new chapter of our lives, it can be really difficult to just be.

What do we do now? Where do we go from here?

If I sit back sipping a cup of tea and reading a book, there’re some guilt feelings that are going to soil my experience.

Maybe this isn’t everybody—maybe it’s just me? I just feel like other folks going through a similar experience, must also sift through these types of feelings too, right? At least somewhat?

I mean if someone was working 40 hours a week to help provide for themselves and for their family, and then that’s gone all of a sudden, it’s hard to unlearn the old habits. It’s difficult to process the feeling that we’re no longer contributing to the household in a significant way.

I’m accustomed to dedicating 10 hours of my day towards work and getting to the office. But, now I don’t have to…

So what do I do?

Take a breath. Let the dust settle.

Trust the universe. Have faith.

Worry doesn’t serve us. Panic debilitates us.

Anxiety sucks our time away more so than the damn cubicle-corporate-whatever-job ever could!

So sure, we can spend an hour or two each day, perusing the Craigslist job listings. Maybe we even send out a couple resumes to interesting prospects. It’s not going to hurt to go on an interview and remember what it feels like to put yourself out there.

Maybe it will pan out into something amazing and maybe it won’t, but it will be an experience we can learn from, at the very least.

But let’s not force it. Let’s not settle.

Let’s not simply apply for another job we won’t love, just because it’s a job we could get hired for. Because for some reason or another, we’ve been given this time—this opportunity to do something else.

Shouldn’t we at least explore the possibilities?

Now I know the reality of it all makes it difficult to feel okay about doing this, but we’ve got to at least try.

Don’t we owe that to ourselves?

I’ve been teaching yoga as a way to bring in a little extra income to my household. I picked up a couple extra classes after being laid-off from my 9-to-5, and it’s not a ton of money, but it helps.

The best thing is it’s something I enjoy doing. It’s a “job” I can do that benefits others. I provide a service to my community, and that feels good.

However, I do wonder: what if I hadn’t become certified to teach? What if I was unemployed, without that bit of extra yoga money?

I’d probably consider finding a part-time job for a bit. Just something to help me float by until I found a new calling that spoke to me. Maybe I’d try to get some hours at the local gardening center—that sounds sort of lovely, in a way.

The point is to find a way to make it work. At least for a little while, so we don’t have to sell ourselves short. So we don’t have to take on some new job we hate.

So for anyone struggling with unemployment, I suggest just taking a moment to breathe.

Let’s enjoy this “down-time” that life has so thoughtfully dropped before us. Let’s practice patience, and spend some time searching, for what truly speaks to us. Or even gutsier: just spend some time living.

I’ve been fortunate to have that small yoga income, and to have a partner who is still employed full-time, to help carry the weight of our household expenditures. And every situation is different, but at the end of the day we are all faced with that same fear: How are we going to make ends meet? 

Although this is a legitimate fear, let’s not let that fear dictate our actions or control us.

Yes, we may have to sacrifice some (maybe several) indulgences, and yes, we will need to tighten our budgets somewhat to make those ends meet.

But ultimately, we find our way—a way to make it work.

A way to live.

Most importantly, let’s enjoy this time that the universe has given to us! Let’s utilize these days we’re not tethered to a desk to go out into the world and explore:

Visit that botanical garden you’ve always wanted to go to; spend a day writing all day long in PJs with a cup of coffee at your side; volunteer at the kiddo’s school without worrying about requesting the time off from your boss.

Enjoy this time.

Because before you know it, you just might find yourself stumbling into an awesome new job—something that just feels right.

It may even happen sooner than we’d expect—and hopefully we didn’t squander this brief gift of freedom with pointless worry.

Relephant Reads:

Laid-Off for Christmas: Pop the Champagne!

I Am Not My Job! 

Author: Yoli Ramazzina

Editor: Caroline Beaton

Photo: Flickr/Keoni Cabral; author’s own.